In case you’re unfamiliar, Aereo lets users beam over-the-air TV signals to computers and mobile devices like the iPhone for $1 a day or $8 a month.

The service is also at the center of a legal hullabaloo as broadcasters, upset that Aereo is not paying retransmission fees, warn that it will create “havoc” and “massive disruption” in the TV industry.

Aereo has won a series of surprising legal victories after New York judges found that its tiny antenna system, which permit viewers to watch and record shows, result in private transmissions that do not violate copyright law. A dissenting judge has called the antenna arrangement a “sham.”

The service has been available in New York City for months and, though the company promised in January that it would launch in 22 new cities, Aereo has yet to actually go live anywhere else.

What today’s announcement means for Boston viewers is that they will be able to watch stations like CBS, NBC, Fox and ABC anywhere they please.

(Image by Samuel Borges Photography via Shutterstock)

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The proposed rules pretty much line up with the details my colleague Stacey Higginbotham outlined earlier this month: The FCC would hold a reverse auction in 2014 in which broadcasters would submit bids to the government for their 6 MHz slices of spectrum. The process is voluntary and the FCC expects only to buy a portion of the 120 MHz targeted. The commission would then “repack” that spectrum into mobile-optimized chunks and sell it to the highest-bidding carriers in a traditional auction. According to a Congressional Budget Office estimate, the process could funnel $15.2 billion into government coffers.

Under the FCC’s proposal some of that spectrum would also be allocated for unlicensed white spaces uses, which could fuel whole new technologies and business cases for broadband. But as Stacey pointed out, the complex auction isn’t without controversy.

Critics question whether the government should be paying broadcasters for spectrum they originally received for free. For their part, broadcasters who want to keep their spectrum aren’t hot on the idea of relocating to different parts of the TV band, which the repacking procedure would require. Consumer groups and smaller carriers worry that the auction will tighten AT&T and Verizon’s stranglehold over the U.S. wireless market by transferring more of the nation’s valuable airwaves into their hands.

In a statement, Public Knowledge was generally encouraged by the proposal, saying that the incentive auction was a way to ensure that public airwaves were put to the best use, though it pointed out that an auction monopolized by the big carriers would do more harm than good. The FCC, however, plans to revisit its spectrum rules governing how many licenses a single carrier can own in a given market, which Public Knowledge said would go far to limit Verizon and AT&T’s chances of dominating the auction.

Carrier industry trade group CTIA also appeared happy with the format. CTIA president and CEO Steve Largent said the auction would not only cleared up much needed airwaves, but it would also do so in a timely manner. He pointed out it took 10 years of planning to bring the 700 MHz and Advanced Wireless Service (AWS) spectrum blocks to auction. Also no new spectrum has come to market since 2008, despite the huge surge in mobile broadband demand the industry has experienced in the last four years.

Friday’s commission meeting also saw the reappearance of LightSquared, which has been desperately trying to stay viable since the FCC denied its plan to launch a nationwide LTE network in its satellite spectrum. LightSquared, now in bankruptcy, has demanded the government give it alternate airwaves in compensation, and on Friday it detailed the specific spectrum it would like: a 5 MHz block in the 1.6 GHz block currently used by the government agencies.

Whether the FCC bites on the LightSquared proposal remains to be seen, but the would-be 4G operator did make one concession the government might like. It said it would share those airwaves with the current government occupants. Spectrum sharing is a big priority for the Obama administration and the FCC.

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You’re probably thinking you’ve seen this before in the guise of Qualcomm’s failed FLO TV service. But Qualcomm tried to create an entirely new digital multicast network for mobile phones and devices – and charge premium rates for the service. The Dyle mobile TV service MetroPCS is offering is the brainchild of the Mobile Content Venture, a consortium of local and network broadcasters, who are using their existing DTV airwaves and infrastructure to replicate their regular programming on the small screen.

So this service isn’t so much a new form of mobile TV as it is just regular TV miniaturized for your handset – without all of the bells and whistles such as DVR capabilities and on-demand programming we’ve become accustomed to having at home. Its biggest advantage, however, is price. It’s free – though Phone Scoop is reporting that Metro may start charging in 2013 – and it runs over broadcast frequencies, meaning you can watch as much as you like without incurring data charges.

The Dyle service is available in about 45 markets today, and within those markets only a handful of stations are participating. For instance, in Chicago you can get the Fox, NBC and Telemundo affiliates as well as the Qubo children’s channel, while in Columbus, Ohio, you can receive the signals of ABC and CBS and NBC, but not Fox.

The MCV says its receiver chips and Dyle software will be available on other Android phones and even iOS devices (presumably with external hardware) soon. The venture may be too late to market to have any kind of impact though. Since participating in the Dyle program requires having local TV spectrum, only the networks, their local affiliates and independent broadcasters can participate. Meanwhile, consumers are not only shifting their viewing to paid cable programming, but also looking to new sources of streamed video on the internet, mobile phone and connected TV platforms.

The best thing Dyle has going for it is it’s free. If it’s true that the MCV and its carrier partners actually plan to start charging for programming, then there could be a big backlash from both regulators and consumers. Broadcasters aren’t using any kind of private cable network or mobile broadband spectrum to deliver this content.  They’re using public free-to-air airwaves, handed to them by the FCC.

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Broadcasters have been looking for a carrier guinea pig to test out their mobile digital TV service, and on Wednesday they found one. MetroPCS has agreed later this year to sell a Samsung Android phone embedded with an Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) chip, which will pluck digital TV signals directly from the broadcast airwaves.

The ATSC standard is backed by Mobile Content Venture, a consortium of TV networks FOX, ION Television, Bahakel, Univision, Telemundo and NBC as well as 15 broadcast groups that run local TV stations. The venture’s aim is to broadcast live feeds over spectrum already allocated for DTV, rather than stream individual video feeds over mobile broadband networks or rely on a separate digital broadcast service like Qualcomm’s ill-fated FLO TV. A special app called Dyle will render the live programming on smartphones. To quote the MVC’s press release:

We are thrilled to work with MetroPCS to make live broadcast TV available to mobile consumers. This collaboration allows Dyle to take the first step in realizing the broadcaster vision of live, local TV on every smartphone.

Every smartphone may be a bit of stretch since MetroPCS, while not tiny, isn’t exactly Verizon Wireless. Metro’s footprint is limited to 14 major markets, but the MVC is hoping to use the regional operator as a launch point for a larger nationwide expansion, one that it hopes will include the big four national operators. There’s still a big question as to whether those operators are interested. Dealing with Qualcomm’s competing service FLO TV wasn’t exactly a cake walk for AT&T and Verizon, which had to procure FLO specialty handsets that they could only sell in markets where FLO offered service. Plus with new big honking LTE networks going up, those operators have their own video plans – plans that don’t involve sticking to the set programming schedule printed in TV Guide.

But the MVC may make operators sweetheart offers they can’t refuse. Broadcasters have an ulterior motive in getting something resembling a commercial video service up and running before regulators come after the TV airwaves. Ultimately, broadcasters may not want to be in the mobile TV business, but they don’t want to part with valuable frequencies either. The MVC and MetroPCS didn’t reveal any of the financial details on the service or device, but the deal likely favors Metro.

The operator has trouble enough procuring inexpensive devices for its unique blend of radio technologies and frequencies without adding a DTV chip to its handset costs. Whatever Samsung device comes out of this deal, it’s got to be cheap, otherwise it wouldn’t work with Metro’s prepaid unsubsidized handset business model. That means someone else has to foot the extra expense of putting a TV in the phone.

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Video requires a lot of bits to create the moving pictures in such fine detail, and it’s also sensitive to latency and packet loss. Unlike an email that can be reassembled piecemeal at the end of its journey across the pipes and routers that make up the web, video packets generally have to travel in a preordained order. Adaptive streaming technologies can help break down video into smaller chunks to compensate for network quality, but video content is essentially a linear stream. So with a lot of bits and a need for those bits to arrive in line, ISPs, be they wired or wireless, have to dedicate enough bandwidth to make sure the streams aren’t interrupted.

On wireless networks where bandwidth is limited by an operator’s spectrum holdings (you can always add more backhaul for a price, but spectrum is more challenging) video delivery can clog a cell site with only a few users. How few? Thanks to Steven Crowley, a networking engineer and consultant, I learned of a Motorola study that shows that a cell site could support up to 5 users that require a 1 Mbps stream. Halving the bit rate to 512 kbps supports 20 users, but as Crowley point out, “that’s not HD by any standard or convention of which I’m aware.”

So why are Verizon and AT&T (even MetroPCS) pitching HD video on mobile networks? The physics of the spectrum don’t support it, and from an economic perspective, the current pricing plans offered for cellular data make it expensive for consumers. Since I don’t see that pricing going down anytime soon, I’m puzzled. Joseph Ambeault, director of media and entertainment services for Verizon, told me that given the on-demand nature of video on mobile devices, he believes that the network can handle it — especially given some technical tweaks Verizon can offer.

For a look at those technical tweaks, Crowley offers a primer on cellular vs broadcast spectrum use, and notes LTE supports broadcast technology. He also explains that broadcasters are reworking the over-the-air transmission standard and may adopt a different technology. However, since most broadcasters are planning to use their existing airwaves for mobile television, and the FCC wants some of that spectrum back, the technology built to support HD video suddenly becomes a matter of hot debate. Which may be the best way to deliver what consumers want when it comes to mobile video?

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The possibility of apps that work as overlays on traditional TV programming — something that’s available on Google TV and may one day also be available to owners of an Apple-branded TV set — is cause for concerns amongst traditional programmers.

Case in point: A new German alliance of content owners, which includes public and commercial broadcasters, asked regulators last week to establish a framework that would prevent network owners from making money with TV apps displayed on top of traditional broadcast content. Representatives of Germany’s commercial broadcasters had already demanded similar steps during an industry event in January, according to heise.de, which has RTL’s media policy expert Tobias Schmid saying: “We are losing money if someone can launch an app with ads during our ad-free news broadcast.”

Granted, highly regulated media markets like Germany are different from the U.S., where TV networks themselves have fewer restrictions to monetize their content. However, U.S. broadcasters were already highly suspicious of Google TV when it launched late last year. Since then, most networks have proceeded to block Google TV devices from accessing content on their websites.

Apps with ads that are displayed as overlays over traditional broadcast content — and maybe even interact with that content — could further alienate broadcasters, by giving them the feeling that they’re losing control of the TV watching experience. But of course, that’s a feeling that could be very similar to the way broadcasters first viewed DVR capabilities.

In fact, the analogy between DVRs that allowed viewers to skip ads and TV apps may not be that far-fetched. App makers have recently begun experimenting with ways to augment the TV viewing experience with context-relevant content through audio fingerprinting. This technology, which is currently being used by ABC to serve up content on the iPad while viewers watch select episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, would be an ideal extension to apps running on a device powered by Google TV. Imagine, for example, an app that automatically recognizes ad breaks based on your TV’s audio feed, only to turn down the volume and overlay these commercials with your Twitter feed.

But even less-obtrusive apps could face resistance from broadcasters, who have long had exclusive windows for content monetization. That someone else could make some money with that content as well — even if it’s just through a small widget displayed on the bottom of the screen — could quickly get broadcasters up in arms.

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What’s missing from the growing mass of Internet video is the content from local affiliate stations. Local news, local sports and local weather — the hallmarks of most broadcast content across the country — aren’t available online. But due to the contracts they’ve agreed to, affiliate stations aren’t able to stream their programming unless they can show that it is only being viewed by households in their local market. That is, a local Nashville station can’t stream its programming widely online; otherwise a viewer in Cincinnati might tune in.

And as more network programming shows up online, viewers have less reason to tune into the live broadcasts. That means affiliates are missing out on revenue from local ads that keep them going. At the same time that the networks are offering up video for free online, they are seeking reverse compensation from local broadcasters for carrying their programming. The local affiliates, in a sense, are getting squeezed from both sides as more content moves online.

A new startup named Syncbak hopes to enable those broadcast stations to take control of their own destinies and create their own streaming services, by offering a way for them to authenticate with local viewers and ensure that Internet-connected devices accessing that content belongs to households that can receive their over-the-air signals.

The startup was founded by Jack Perry, former CEO of Decisionmark, a company which provided software to Dish Network and DirecTV to authenticate local broadcast streams. For years, those satellite TV providers weren’t able to deliver local broadcast streams, until Decisionmark provided technology to determine which local signals to make available to different subscribers. And as we all know, finally having access to local news and sports helped grow the satellite TV business substantially.

In a similar fashion, by providing technology to ensure that a viewer is local, Syncback is opening the door to enable broadcasters to stream linear and on-demand video feeds in a way they previously couldn’t. The company sells a small rack-mounted server called a Syncbox that creates a closed transmission over broadcast spectrum and verifies that live content streamed over the web is only seen by those who can access it over the air. By authenticating, those local stations will be able to reach devices like Internet-connected TVs, or even smartphones and tablets, so long as those devices have connected through the same home network that the verified over-the-air device is on.

Syncbak spent the first year of its existence getting buy-in from broadcasters and ensuring it was working on a problem they wanted to solve. It spent the second year building the necessary proprietary hardware and software to create a verified stream. Now in its third year, Syncbak is working on getting its technology into local broadcast stations and also into consumer electronics devices.

Syncbak is currently in trials with about a dozen local broadcasters, and looks to have 50 participating stations by the end of the year. For the most part, those broadcasters are in early “friends and family” trials to see how the service could work. But Syncbak hopes that by next year’s CES, it will have its software embedded in devices like connected TVs. Even if it’s not embedded, the company has developed a dongle that can connect to the home network and authenticate with broadcasters.

Authentication opens up new potential revenue streams for local broadcasters, such as subscription or transactional business models. It also creates the ability for broadcasters to serve up local, hyper-local and otherwise targeted ads to run, increasing the potential CPMs they can charge local and national advertisers. Since programming is delivered via IP, the broadcasters also have detailed metrics for how viewers are watching shows that they can share with advertisers.

For all the possibilities Syncbak opens up for broadcasters, its business model depends on consumer adoption. The company aims to make money off of revenue share split with broadcasters, whether they make their money through subscription, transactional or ad sales.

Despite operating under the radar for the past two years, Syncbak has gotten some significant backing in that time. Strategic investors include industry groups like the National Association of Broadcasters and the Consumer Electronics Association. According to SEC filings, it has raised $4.2 million over two rounds of funding so far. With industry backing and a compelling message to broadcasters, Syncbak could power some interesting new services beginning soon. The question is if Syncbak and its broadcast partners can capture consumer attention.

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Bamboom CEO Chaitanya Kanojia

But the demand for broadcast content is there and Bamboom aims to fill it with legal muscle and infrastructure accumen. Bamboom wants to create an array of antennas that are each smaller than a dime (they look like earrings) to gather the signals that local television stations emit. It will then translate those to signals so they can be delivered over an IP network, which means any web-connected device that has an HTML5-compliant browser can play the program. This could be a Roku, a web connected TV, an iPad or any number of other devices. For those without such devices, the company also offers a box to connect to an older television so it can receive the signals as well.

As a cord cutter who can’t get a broadcast signal using an over-the-air antenna, I would happily pay for this service, especially if it’s in the sub-$10 range, which Bamboom CEO Chaitanya Kanojia says is where he’s trying to keep the monthly subscription price. Kanojia has a history in the television business: his previous startup Navic did TV ads and was bought by Microsoft in 2008. His history is likely one reason led by FirstMark Capital led the $4.5 million round. Also participating were High Line Venture Partners, SV Angel, First Round Capital and Highland Capital Partners.

That’s a significant “seed” round, especially when most startups are raising a few hundred thousand to prove out their ideas. However, in addition to manufacturing the antennas, building out a cloud of specialized appliances for doing real-time transcoding on the cheap (Bamboom built a special chip that uses DSP cores to keep the transcoding costs low), the startup also needs a legal war chest because it’s really a question of when, not if, it will get sued.

“Our investors planned for this” Kanojia said. “We need money for infrastructure and lawsuits.”

The company designed its distribution network with a court case in mind — a legal fight between content owners and Cablevision that led to the judge ruling the cable provider could store and stream content from its central location (called a headend) as opposed to sending each customer a digital video recorder. The court determined that it could do this because it still counted as a private viewing as long as the content was requested by and performed for a customer.

For Bamboom that means that each subscriber has to have an antenna on its array, so there’s no question that the viewing of the program is called for and controlled by a customer. An LA Times article on the company points out that this workaround may not be enough, given that startup Zevida has tried to make a slightly analogous argument in the DVD industry and was subsequently sued. That case is still in the courts.

There’s also a question of how much and how quickly Bamboom will build out its service. In order to offer it, Bamboom has to spend money setting up the antenna array and the fiber to send the signals to its transcoding cloud and then to the customer’s home. Kanojia declined to say what this costs, but says it’s orders of magnitude less than the cost of setting up a cable plant. He also wouldn’t talk about his strategy for selling the product to consumers and gaining customers, or where Bamboom would go next.

So with the capital to build out a technical trial in New York and then open up a wider beta there in the summer, as well as lawyers already in the wings for the inevitable lawsuit, Kanojia is ready to get down to the fun of building out his company. For him it’s a matter of providing access to a service that the public technically owns. He argues that broadcasters only have access to this spectrum because they are fulfilling a public good, but if people can’t technically get to those signals because of interference then they are denied access to a service they are entitled to.

“We’re providing access of a public resource to the public, ” he said. Of course, he is charging a fee for the service, but he points out that cost is merely the rental associated with the antenna. Presumably it does more than cover the costs of building and supporting the infrastructure associated with Bamboom, so the business can turn a profit, but that’s an issue the company can worry about after it runs the legal gauntlet, aces its technical trials and convinces users to sign up. I hope it makes it to Austin, so I can try it.

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Over the last week, we’ve seen:

• Clicker has integrated with Facebook to use its data to provide personalized recommendations to new users.
• Facebook, in turn, is pitching pay TV operators like Time Warner and Verizon on its ability to extend those recommendations to their subscribers.
• Netflix is reportedly hiring an engineer that could connect its recommendations service with Facebook data. When asked about this by email, Netflix VP of Corporate Communications Steve Swasey admitted the company’s social networking plans are evolving.
• YouTube rolled out a new homepage to let users personalize the videos they see when they log in.
• Comcast, trying to find a better way to display its channel lineup, is testing a new user interface in one of its markets.

In all these cases, one thing is clear: The world is gradually moving toward on-demand viewing based on personalized recommendations. But in a world where viewers choose what to watch based on their own personal interests, what happens to the gatekeepers who previously had toiled to make sure people tuned in to a certain show at a certain time?

We’re already seeing the erosion of programmers’ influence in the way viewers watch TV through DVRs and online, with some shows getting nearly 40 percent of their viewers after a show airs. More than 5.5 million viewers of ABC hit Modern Family, for instance, watch the show on-demand or on their DVRs. It’s not as important today that a show has a particular time slot when so many of its viewers aren’t actually watching it live.

Personalizing recommendations, and allowing for new means of content discovery, takes that one step further. When content is discovered, through recommendation engines or by other means, it doesn’t matter to the user who made the show, what channel it’s on, or even whether it’s new or not. Perhaps the best example of this comes from Netflix’s recommendations engine: its streaming service doesn’t thrive because it offers users the hottest new releases, but because it consistently serves up content that is relevant to the user.

For users, the result is a steady stream of new and fresh content, and also content that’s more relevant and engaging than what one might find by purely channel surfing. And for content creators — especially independent content creators — personalized recommendations serve as a way to level the playing field. No longer does it matter whether a show appeared on broadcast, cable or online; the only factor that matters is whether or not a user might be inclined to watch it.

But for programmers — especially those at big media companies — the democratization and personalization of content is a direct threat to their business models. The ability to program a show lineup becomes less important when lead-ins are out of the control of the network. When a fan of a show like the U.S. version of The Office is recommended episodes of British comedy The IT Crowd, it takes away NBC’s ability to control and aggregate audiences in a way that’s necessary for the ad dollars it depends on.

So what’s the future of network programming, and how do media companies reach an audience that isn’t tuning in to a certain channel at a certain time? How do they get audiences to watch their shows, when an algorithm is in control of the recommendations?

In a personalized world, there will be more emphasis on quality of content, certainly, and niche content and the long tail will have its time to shine. But there will also be a place for sponsored placement, of the sort we already see on YouTube, for catching the user’s eye. The question is if that kind of placement will be enough to capture new audiences that otherwise might not tune in.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Kiersten Balukas.

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